Dear Neil,
As per your HIFA email below [see note below*], I searched HON and am surprised to find the following note on their website (not sure if its true maybe someone can check too [see note below*]):
HON is no longer updated and will be permanently discontinued on December 15, 2022. Despite all our efforts, it is no longer possible to maintain it. We thank you for your understanding.
Best wishes
Dr Meena Nathan Cherian, MBBS, MD (Anaesthesia)
(Former WHO Lead Emergency and Essential Surgical Care Program, Geneva, Switzerland).
Director, Global Health New Challenges:online courses, Geneva Foundation for Medical Education & Research (GFMER), Switzerland. <http://www.gfmer.ch/surgery/cancer.htm> www.gfmer.ch/surgery/cancer.htm
Senior Advisor, Global Action, International Society of Geriatric Oncology (SIOG), Switzerland. SIOG Secretariat - SIOG <https://siog.org/about-us/the-society/siog-secretariat/>
Adjunct Prof.The Chinese University of Hong Kong,Shenzhen,HK China. <https://med.cuhk.edu.cn/en/teacher/371> https://med.cuhk.edu.cn/en/teacher/371
WHO-HIFA Working Group on Essential Health Services and COVID-19; mHEALTH-INNOVATE. <http://www.hifa.org/> www.hifa.org
Geneva, Switzerland. <mailto:+41%20763837253> +41 763837253(m); cherianm15@gmail.com
HIFA profile: Meena Cherian is Director, Emergency & Surgical Care program, Geneva Foundation of Medical Education and Research, Geneva, Switzerland. She is a member of the HIFA working group on Essential Health Services and COVID-19. https://www.hifa.org/support/members/meena and is also a member of the HIFA mHEALTH-INNOVATE working group. https://www.hifa.org/projects/essential-health-services-and-covid-19 www.gfmer.ch mail: cherianm15 AT gmail.com
[*Notes from HIFA moderator (NPW):
1. In my previous email, I commented: "It would also be interesting to compare PIF Tick with the HON Code (Health on the Net Foundation, Geneva), and any other 'kite-marks' that may exist. It's important that such initiatives build the collective impact while avoiding fragmentation and duplication."
2. Meena, thank you for bringing this to our attention. I can confirm the home page states: 'HON is no longer updated and will be permanently discontinued on December 15, 2022. Despite all our efforts, it is no longer possible to maintain it. We thank you for your understanding.'
3. The HON Code has been the global leader in kitemarking websites for reliability. The initiative pioneered an approach based on an assessment of website producers and practices (rather than kite-marking of individual pages, which would have been near-impossible). I have been among many who have strongly supported the HON Code over the years. My main recommendation had been to strengthen the marketing and visibility of the code, as only a tiny minority of health website users would likely have been aware of it (compare this with the success of Fair Trade kitemarking for consumer goods). It is ironic that HON Code is closing down at a time when it has never been more important to differentiate reliable from unreliable health information. It's important that we, the global health information community, learn from this. Most importantly we need to understand the direct and indirect reasons for the closure and the implications for kite-marking approaches in the future.]
